Sweetleaf wrote:
And why should the one word be called the 'R' word...as someone who got called it as a child all the time that is almost more triggering than just the word ret*d used in the correct context. Besides I often joke to my friends that my processing speed is ret*d, because it is pretty slow and according to the dictionary well it works.
I guess my bigger question is why should that word be seen as bad....that seems to imply its 'wrong' to be mentally ret*d or something, so thus calling someone ret*d is insulting? I just don't see why mental retardation would be something to insult or use as an insult anyways.
The disability movement directs that society should use people first language such as a person with a disability rather than the disabled, when people are identified as having disabilities in society. It is out of respect for an individual to be identified as a person first, rather than being identified by the disability.
People or children with intellectual disabilities appears to be the politically correct usage rather than the older term mentally ret*d which is often shortened to MR.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/high-school-yearbooks-labeled-special-needs-students-mentally-131931649.html
An example of above, per a YearBook, of how offensive, the general population finds labeling children with disorders per identification in arenas other than the medical field, where the children are actually diagnosed. The comments associated with the article, address the issue as well.
It becomes more confusing because some proponents of neurodiversity support the disability movement, however many support disability first language, per autistic rather than person first language like person with autism.
It can be difficult to please everyone with politically correct terms. This is the problem that Microsoft would run into if they attempted to please one small section of the "autistic community" comprised of people whom consider themselves as higher functioning individuals that take pride in identifying themselves as autistic, as opposed to a much larger population of individuals that see the condition as disabling and prefer that people not be identified by first person disability language, like autistic, disabled or ret*d, in the case that either of the three were to technically apply to an individual's personal diagnosis.
One reason why I was trying to get an answer from an higher authority from Microsoft, to see if this policy applies to all Medical Disorders, to determine if Microsoft was following the overall parameters of the disability movement, by restricting the usage of terms for disorders, from being used for identification purposes as gamertags, in their gaming community.
Human beings as well as most other primates, seem to have an inherent propensity to establish a hierachy of importance/dominance in social groups. And the more unfortunate aspect of that is that with the human ability for language, pejorative language is used to literally put people down in a perceived social hierachy in almost every way imaginable, through almost every personal and behavioral charactersitic available as use for a target, moving well beyond any actual disorder or disability.
However it is better that some of the stuff we see in the animal kingdom, such as domesticated cats that put other cats in a place of subjugation by taking a swipe across the face with a clawed paw. Much of that changes if the claws are removed. The cats become, even more domesticated.
Human are both domesticated and civilized, so it is usually non-verbal communication used to subjugate others in subtle ways, much more so than physical assault or language that is often more direct, and can provide penalties much greater than the subtle non-verbal communication used to subjugate others.
Microsoft can't really reasonably take a chance on getting into this with autism, because of difficulties in social communication, and a greater probability that a person with autism may be offended intentionally or unintentionally, by the usage of the term autism in a gamer tag.
It's hard enough for the moderator's here to sort out who is intentionally being offensive and who has no idea that they are being offensive. Microsoft doesn't have personnel trained to properly deal with this, even if it was politically correct per the disability movement to allow medical disorders to be used as first person identifiers in gamertags.
There is no feedback in the forums there, that I could find, in an historical search, of people complaining that they couldn't use the term autism in a gamer tag, so it appears that this may be the first serious complaint
As one can see there are angles that support the complaint, but from the perspective of Microsoft there seem to be the potential of a much greater proponderance of angles that do not support the change of current policy.
22 May 2012, 2:05 pm
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